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With the flu-ridden Canadiens trailing 2-0 Tuesday night in New Jersey, Dale Weise decided it was time for some old-school hockey.

Goalie Carey Price didn’t make the trip because of the flu, while Victor Mete and Jordan Weal stayed behind at the team’s New Jersey hotel because they were too sick to play. About a half-dozen other players ended up playing with the flu and Ryan Poehling was among those who had to make a few trips back to the locker room between shifts to throw up.

Not surprisingly, the Canadiens got off to a slow start and after Kyle Palmieri scored at 1:51 of the second period to put the Devils up 2-0, Weise decided to do something to try and fire up his teammates.

On the ensuing faceoff at centre ice, Weise dropped the gloves with John Hayden in one of those staged fights you rarely see in today’s NHL.

“It doesn’t happen as much anymore,” Weise said after practice Wednesday in Brossard. “That’s kind of old-school.

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“I think that’s something that we needed,” he added. “We didn’t have much of a start. We were kind of flat.”

If the Canadiens did get a boost from the fight it didn’t show right away with Jesper Bratt scoring to give the Devils a 3-0 lead while Weise and Hayden still had 10 seconds left to serve in their fighting penalties.

In 14 games with the Canadiens this season, Dale Weise has 1-3-4 totals and 16 penalty minutes — including two fights — and has earned a regular spot on the fourth line.Allen McInnis/Montreal Gazette

“They still scored to make it 3-0 after that and then I was sitting there like: Man, come on!” Weise said. “Then we started to find our legs and really took over.”

The Canadiens fought back to take a 4-3 lead and ended up winning 5-4 in a shootout on Ilya Kovalchuk’s goal.

Did Weise’s fight actually have an impact on his teammates?

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“Yeah,” said Nick Cousins, who scored the third Canadiens goal. “I got pretty fired up on the bench. I think the majority of the guys on the bench did as well. That’s old-school hockey … you don’t see that very often anymore. Weisey’s been playing well for us. He’s come in and given us some good energy and a good physical presence.”

This has been a tough season for the 31-year-old Weise, who the Canadiens acquired at last year’s NHL trade deadline from the Philadelphia Flyers. Weise was pointless in nine games with the Canadiens last year and started this season with the AHL’s Laval Rocket, posting 3-4-7 totals in 27 games before getting called up by the Canadiens. In 14 games with the Canadiens, Weise has 1-3-4 totals and 16 penalty minutes — including two fights — and has earned a regular spot on the fourth line.

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“I’m going to be extremely honest here,” coach Claude Julien said after Wednesday’s practice when asked about Weise. “When Dale came last year I didn’t see much. I don’t know if it was because he was in the minors for a long time and whatever the case was. But he didn’t bring what he’s bringing right now. And when you’re honest and you look at a player … training camp (this season) he wasn’t a bad player, but we had no room for him. But he’s come back and we’ve put him in the lineup and he’s doing exactly what we need him to do — and that’s not fighting. I know he’s fought a couple of times. But he’s playing his role. I’ve had to use him on the penalty-kill whenever one of our penalty-killers is in the box and he just does his role. He’s not trying to do too much and he’s not trying to do more. He’s just doing a good job at what he’s supposed to do.”

Tuesday night, Weise felt it was part of his job to drop the gloves and try to give his ailing teammates a boost.

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“For me, we’re down 2-0, I think that’s the perfect time,” he said. “We didn’t have a lot of life, we didn’t have a lot going. So that’s something I think I bring to the table on our line and that’s something we needed.”

After the fight, Weise patted the 24-year-old Hayden — who is a Yale University graduate — on the back, basically thanking him for the fight. It was another old-school move.

“You know what? When you’re up 2-0, he really has no reason to fight there,” Weise explained. “They got all the momentum, they’re carrying the play. So just respect a player to stand up for himself.”

Was the fight really a turning point in the game? Weise and his teammates believe it was.

“Yeah, for sure,” Weise said. “In games like that where you really have nothing going you can go out and get a big hit or sometimes a fight kind of just fires the guys up and says: Come on! We got to get going here. That’s kind of the effect that I was hoping for.”

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